1 Samuel 20 — Read & Listen Online

A Friend Between David and Death

Chapter 20.

Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah and came to Jonathan and said, "What have I done? What is my crime, and how have I sinned against your father, that he is trying to take my life?"

"Never!" Jonathan replied. "You will not die. Look, my father does nothing, great or small, without telling me. Why would he hide this from me? It isn't so."

But David took an oath and said, "Your father knows very well that you think well of me, and he has said, 'Jonathan must not know this, or he will be grieved.' Yet as surely as our Father lives, and as you yourself live, there is only a step between me and death."

Jonathan said to David, "Whatever you want, I will do for you."

So David said, "Look, tomorrow is the new moon, and I am expected to sit and eat with the king. But let me go and hide in the field until the evening of the third day." ¹ If your father misses me at all, tell him, 'David earnestly asked my permission to go quickly to Bethlehem, his hometown, because the yearly sacrifice is being held there for his whole clan.' If he says, 'Good,' then your servant is safe. But if he flies into a rage, you can be sure he has decided to do me harm. As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you brought your servant into a covenant with you before our Father. But if I am guilty of anything, kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?

"Never!" Jonathan said. "If I had any idea my father was determined to harm you, wouldn't I tell you?"

Jonathan and David Seal Their Covenant

David asked, "Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?"

"Come," Jonathan said, "let's go out to the field." So the two of them went out together.

Then Jonathan said to David, "Our Father, the God of Israel, be my witness! By this time tomorrow, or the day after, I will sound out my father. If he is favorable toward you, will I not surely send word and let you know? But if my father intends to do you harm, may our Father deal with me most severely if I fail to let you know and send you safely on your way. May our Father be with you, as he has been with my father. But show me the unfailing love of our Father as long as I live, so that I won't die, and never cut off your kindness from my family—not even when our Father has cut off every one of David's enemies from the face of the earth.

So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, "May our Father call David's enemies to account." And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own life.

Then Jonathan said to him, "Tomorrow is the new moon. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty. The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go down quickly to the place where you hid when this trouble began, and wait there beside the stone Ezel. I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. Then I will send the boy and say, 'Go, find the arrows.' If I tell him, 'Look, the arrows are on this side of you—bring them here,' then come, for as surely as our Father lives, you are safe; there is no danger. But if I say to the boy, 'Look, the arrows are beyond you,' then you must go, for our Father has sent you away. And about the matter you and I have spoken of—remember, our Father stands as witness between you and me forever.

So David hid in the field. When the new moon came, the king sat down to eat. The king sat in his usual place by the wall. Jonathan sat across from him, and Abner sat beside Saul, but David's place was empty. Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, "Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean—surely he is unclean." ²

But the next day, the second day of the month, David's place was empty again. So Saul asked his son Jonathan, "Why hasn't the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?"

Jonathan replied, "David earnestly begged me to let him go to Bethlehem." He said, 'Please let me go, because our family is holding a sacrifice in the town, and my brother has ordered me to be there. So now, if you think well of me, let me slip away to see my brothers.' That is why he has not come to the king's table.

A King's Rage, Two Friends' Farewell

Then Saul's anger flared against Jonathan, and he said to him, "You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don't I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of the mother who bore you? As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingship will be secure. Now send for him and bring him to me, for he is doomed to die!

"Why should he be put to death? What has he done?" Jonathan asked his father.

But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death.

Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger, and on that second day of the month he ate nothing, because he was grieved at his father's shameful treatment of David.

In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with David, and he took a young boy with him. He said to the boy, "Run and find the arrows I shoot." As the boy ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him. When the boy reached the place where Jonathan's arrow had fallen, Jonathan called out after him, "Isn't the arrow beyond you?" Then he shouted after the boy, "Hurry! Be quick! Don't stop!" So Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows and came back to his master. The boy knew nothing of all this; only Jonathan and David knew what it meant. Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and told him, "Go, carry them back to town."

As soon as the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and fell facedown to the ground, bowing three times. Then they kissed each other and wept together, though David wept the most.

Then Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, for the two of us have sworn an oath in the name of our Father, saying, 'Our Father is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and mine, forever.'" Then David got up and left, and Jonathan went back to the town.

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